teaches courses on African history and modern world history. Her research focuses on the politics of national development in decolonization-era and postcolonial Africa. Currently, Professor Lal is working on a book entitled Human Resources about the training, labor, and circulation of educational and medical professionals in and beyond southeastern Africa since independence. This project recently won a Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship and an ACLS Fellowship, both from the American Council of Learned Societies. Professor Lal's first book, African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania: Between the Village and the World, tells the story of Tanzania's socialist experiment, the ujamaa villagization initiative of the 1960s and 70s. Drawing on a wide range of oral and written sources, this study both examines the political imaginary of ujamaa (Swahili for "familyhood") and explores the varied ways in which ujamaa policy was implemented and experienced; it received an Honorable Mention for the African Studies Association's Bethwell Ogot Book Prize. Professor Lal has also written articles and chapters about topics including Maoism in Tanzania, African engagement with the New International Economic Order, unorthodox socialist projects across the 20th century world, reproductive labor in decolonization-era Africa, and Marxism’s varied lives in sub-Saharan Africa.
Samuel Mhajida
is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, Political Science and Development Studies. His areas of teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels include Philosophies and methodologies of History, Regional Histories, Themes in African History, Economic History of Tanzania, Theory of History and Environmental History. Dr. Mhajida's research interests revolve around the Ethnic history of Tanzania (History of the Datoga and Mbugwe of Tanzania), Urbanization and the impact of informal economy on the urban youth, Gender history and Christianity and History of the youth movements.
